The Rorschach Ink Blot Test

Robyn M. Dawes

the Rorschach interpretation is unreliable and invalid.

it is still accepted in court proceedings involving involuntary
commitment and child custody

One of the most dearly (expensively) held
beliefs of many clinical psychologists is the belief in the validity of
Rorschach inkblot interpretation. While this belief may be common in the general
American population, it is particularly strong among clinical psychologists,
many of whom still give Rorschachs despite the consistent research findings —
of literally thousands of published studies — that the Rorschach
interpretation is unreliable and invalid. The plausibility of Rorschach
interpretation is so compelling that it is still accepted in court proceedings
involving involuntary commitment and child custody, with psychologists who offer
such interpretations in these hearings being duly recognized as
"experts."1

American Psychological Association rules of
ethics prohibit my presenting an example of a Rorschach inkblot. (Presumably,
prior exposure to these blots would contaminate the validity, if there were any,
of any subsequent use.) Suffice it to say that there are ten blots on cards
roughly the size of regular typing paper. Six of these are black and various
shades of gray; the remaining four have color. The blots themselves cover
roughly half the area of the cards on which they are reproduced, in a horizontal
orientation — that is, the position of a sheet of typing paper turned on its
side. These blots are symmetric around a vertical axis in the middle of the
card. They were developed by the psychiatrist Herman Rorschach (1884-1922), for
purposes totally unrelated to assessing character structure and personality
problems.

The subject is asked to say what the cards
look like to him or her. The instructions are purposely vague, allowing subjects
to make associations from the form, shading, color, or texture of the blots.
Moreover, the subject can respond to each blot in its entirety, to major
portions of the blot ("large details"), or to small details in the
blot's structure; subjects are also free to make use of the white spaces
surrounding the blot or within it. Finally, the subject is free to rotate the
cards from the positions in which they are presented — and even to turn cards
over and look at the back of them.

"Why does it look like a bat?"

After the subject gives a response, the
examiner asks him or her to explain it with such questions as "Why does it
look like a bat?", "What in the blot makes it look like your
grandfather drunkenly falling off his chair at his fifty-fifth wedding
anniversary celebration?", or simply, "Tell me more." Moreover,
subjects are urged to see more than one percept per blot with queries such as
"Anything else?"

The theory behind the test is simple. The
world contains ambiguity; people respond to the ambiguity in habitual ways, and
the more ambiguous the situation in which they find themselves the more
important these habitual response styles become. An inkblot, being the ultimate
of ambiguity, should be an ideal way to "tap into" such habitual
responses. Moreover, the content that people see may give valuable clues about
the types of materials they "have on their mind" in that these are
free to be projected into the stimulus situation, because it in fact has no
structure of its own. Hence, the Rorschach is termed a projective test.
Moreover, as Freud has suggested, the content of dreams and fantasies is
particularly indicative of our unconscious needs and conflicts, because there is
no external stimulus to which we are responding. By virtue of being a stimulus
with minimal structure, the Rorschach inkblots elicit projections of internally
generated "percepts" — which can then be used to make inferences
about unconscious needs and conflicts.

"It looks like a bat that has been squashed on
the pavement under the heel of a giant's boot."

The theory is not only plausible but
compelling. For example, I recall testing a very depressed individual who
immediately responded to a blot by saying, "It looks like a bat that has
been squashed on the pavement under the heel of a giant's boot." What
response could possibly be more "one-down?" The fact that the
individual was obviously depressed led to my belief in the validity of the
Rorschach. (Note that my observation can be reframed to indicate that his
response provided me with no information that I did not already have.) Of
course, if he had been obviously psychotic, I could have noted that his percept
concerned material not present in the blot (e.g., the giant and the boot). That
would have also impressed me, because that response would indicate how he
attended to stimuli not present in the environment — virtually the definition
of psychosis. Or, if he had suffered from aggressive outbursts, I would have
noted the hostility in the response.

I also recall testing a homosexual male nurse
(at the time, homosexuality was termed a "disease") who gave
approximately forty "vista" responses — for example, vistas of
Chinese junks on lagoons with mountains in the background. At the time, the
prevailing theory about the etiology of male homosexuality was that it was due
to childhood withdrawal of feelings from an overpowering mother who aroused
incest fantasies and identification with a weak, passive father — who had to
be weak and passive or the mother would not have been that way. How clearly
these vista responses indicated the man's pathological tendency to distance
himself from emotionally threatening material!

seeing something that the examiner cannot see
must indicate very poor "reality testing" — most probably psychosis.

The compelling plausibility of Rorschach
interpretation should now be apparent. Clearly, for example, responding to the
blots in their entirety would seem to indicate a tendency to search for the
"big pictures" in life — even when they aren't there; motion
responses must indicate an active imagination; the use of white spaces, a
tendency toward oppositionality and perverseness, et cetera, et cetera.
Moreover, seeing something that the examiner cannot see must indicate very poor
"reality testing" — most probably psychosis. (At one staff meeting I
attended, the head psychologist successfully lobbied to have someone labeled
"schizophrenic" after waving a Rorschach blot in front of the group
and demanding, "Does this look like a bear to you?") Like the
unstructured interview, the Rorschach inkblot test is a major technique used by
many clinical psychologists.

In contrast to the compelling plausibility of
the inkblot test, what does the research show? Based on thousands of studies
addressed to this question, the answer is simple: damn little support for the
projective hypothesis. For example, one consistent finding is that the number of
responses the subject makes correlates with scores on intelligence tests. But
then again the amount a subject talks in any situation may have such a
relationship, and intelligence tests are better measures of intelligence than is
the Rorschach test.2

There are also certain intriguing findings,
such as that concerning the "index of existential pathology." This
index refers to the tendency to see part-human, part-nonhuman things — for
example, cartoon characters, elves, satyrs, and witches. One study indicated
that "neurotics" have a much higher tendency than do "normals"
or "eminent physical scientists" to see such things.3 This finding
appeared, however, at the end of a long paper on the "psychodynamics of
eminent physical scientists" in which none of the other hypotheses tested
was supported-for example, the hypothesis that eminent physical scientists
should have a greater tendency than others to refer to "mother
nature." Moreover, the scores on this index were trichonomized in a post
hoc manner into 0-3, 3-6, and 6 or more. Perhaps this categorization was made to
maximize the value of the statistic used to assess "significance."
Moreover, there is no mention in the literature of replicating this difference.
I mention this finding because it is typical of intriguing findings involving
the Rorschach. They appear and then disappear from our body of knowledge.

What about the basic dimensions of personality
and psychopathology that the Rorschach purports to assess as a projective
device? Does it work? The answer to this question — at least up until 1978 —
may be found by reading the reviews of the Rorschach in the Mental Measurement
Yearbook. First published in 1938, the Yearbook was the work of Oscar K. Burros,
who edited it until his death. Beginning as a modest compilation of reviews of
intelligence, aptitude, interest, and personality tests, it became the major
source of information about all the tests in psychological literature — until
its last publication in 1978, which consisted of two volumes of roughly 1,000
pages each. It was not truly a "yearbook," since it was published only
every five years or so. The Rorschach, and other projective tests, were first
reviewed in the third volume in 1949. There were two reviews, one favorable and
one unfavorable. The unfavorable one was by J. R. Wittenborn, who wrote (p.133):

Despite these limitations, the test flourishes, its
admirers multiply, and its claims proliferate.

What passes for research in this field is
usually naively conceived, inadequately controlled, and only rarely subjected to
the usual standards of experimental rigor with respect to the statistical tests
and freedom from ambiguity. Despite these limitations, the test flourishes, its
admirers multiply, and its claims proliferate.

The favorable review was by Morris Kruguman
(p. 132):

The Rorschach withstood the clinical test well
throughout the years and has come out stronger for it; on the other hand,
attempts at atomistic validation have been unsuccessful and will probably
continue to be so.

Note that neither reviewer cited any studies
that demonstrated validity. The favorable one views these as "attempts at
atomistic validation" — which the author derogates. (But what could be
more "atomistic" than a psychological diagnosis presented in a custody
dispute? Such a diagnosis is a qualitative characterization, and if attempts to
validate such characterizations on the basis of the Rorschach have been
unsuccessful, how can they be made on the basis of this test?) The unfavorable
reviewer's characterization of the research as shoddy left open the possibility
that good research might show the Rorschach to have some validity.

But if it does have validity, it is not
reported in the next Yearbook. The favorable review by Helen Sargent asserts
instead (p.218) that "the Rorschach test is a clinical technique, not a
psychometric method."

"The test has repeatedly failed as a prediction of
practical criteria. There is nothing in the literature to encourage
reliance on Rorschach interpretations."

By the time the fifth Yearbook was published
in 1959, the world's leading expert on psychological testing, Lee Cronbach, is
quoted in a review: "The test has repeatedly failed as a prediction of
practical criteria. There is nothing in the literature to encourage reliance on
Rorschach interpretations."4 In addition, major reviewer Raymond J. McCall
writes (p.154): "Though tens of thousands of Rorschach tests have been
administered by hundreds of trained professionals since that time (of a previous
review), and while many relationships to personality dynamics and behavior have
been hypothesized, the vast majority of these relationships have never been
validated empirically, despite the appearance of more than 2,000 publications
about the test." (Italics are in the original.) The other major reviewer,
Hans J. Eysenck, was even more negative. After presenting the Cronbach quote, he
reiterated again that there is absolutely no evidence for any of the claims of
the people using the Rorschach test.

In the sixth Mental Measurement Yearbook
published in 1965, Arthur R. Jensen wrote (p.509):

Many psychologists who have looked into the
matter are agreed that the 40 years of massive effort which have been lavished
on the Rorschach technique have proved unfruitful, at least so far as the
development of a useful psychological test is concerned.

And later,

The rate of scientific progress in clinical
psychology might well be measured by the speed and thoroughness with which it
gets over the Rorschach.

In the seventh Yearbook, John F. Knudsen, a
professor of clinical psychology and a practicing clinician, wrote (p. 440):
"The Rorschach has continued to be characterized by numerous scoring
systems and an overwhelming helming amount of negative research."

Finally, in the eighth Yearbook (1978),
Richard H. Davis (p. 1045) concluded: "The general lack of predicted
validity for the Rorschach raises serious questions about its continued use in
clinical practice."

Are there not other reviewers in these same
volumes who support the test? Yes, but none of them refer to any research
results. Instead, they justify use of the Rorschach on the basis that it is a
"very novel interview," a "behavior sample," or
"source" or that it is a type of "structured interview" with
which many clinical psychologists have become comfortable. These claims somewhat
vaguely reference "experience"; in addition there are a few
suggestions that appear once and then disappear for using the Rorschach in a
novel manner — such as having each member of a distressed couple take the test
separately and then requiring the couple to reach a joint conclusion about what
the blots look like. The problem, of course, is that there is no evidence that
this particular form of "structured interview" is more effective than
any other, and, as pointed out elsewhere, only interviews structured to elicit
certain specific information are valid. Even if it were demonstrated that this
type of interviewing does provide valid information, there is still the question
of whether any of it has incremental validity — that is, whether it provides
any information that cannot be obtained from simpler and more reliable sources,
such as the history of past behavior. Why then does the Rorschach continue to be
used?

What I believe is "crucial in any psychology," however,
is not a belief in the validity of the Rorschach, but an understanding of
why people believe it.

The answer may be found in the review of A. G.
Bernstein in the seventh Mental Measurement Yearbook in 1972. He wrote (p.434):
"the view that recognition, the act of construing an unfamiliar stimulus,
taps central components of personality functions is one that will remain crucial
in any psychology committed to the understanding of human experience."
Despite his misuse of the term recognition (which means noting that a stimulus
has appeared before in one's experience — the exact opposite of
"construing an unfamiliar stimulus"), I agree with Bernstein. He
refers to a view, a plausible assumption. If we adopt this assumption, the
Rorschach should work. The overwhelming evidence that it does not work is
ignored. Perhaps some other test works, but this particular one fails. (One
really interesting question is why the same ten blots have been used for over
fifty years, given the failure of the technique and the simultaneous belief in
the underlying "theory." The best hypothesis I can provide is that of
"institutional inertia.") What I believe is "crucial in any
psychology," however, is not a belief in the validity of the Rorschach, but
an understanding of why people believe it. The fascinating question is, who's
projecting what and why?5 In contrast, a popular new scoring system ("the
Exner system") has empirical validity. The major variables in this system
that correlate with behavior, however, are based on assessing the quality
("form level") of the responses. Such assessment is based on the
assumption that parts of the blots do resemble some shapes more than others, an
assumption totally counter to the "projective" one that it is the lack
of structure in the blots that leads to valid interpretations of subjects'
responses.

Footnotes

the use of Rorschach interpretations in establishing an
individual's legal status and child custody is the single most unethical
practice of my colleagues.

1 Now that I am no longer a member of the
American Psychological Association Ethics Committee, I can express my personal
opinion that the use of Rorschach interpretations in establishing an
individual's legal status and child custody is the single most unethical
practice of my colleagues. It is done, widely. Losing legal rights as a result
of responding to what is presented as a "test of imagination ," often
in a context of "helping," violates what I believe to be a basic
ethical principle in this society — that people are judged on the basis of
what they do, not on the basis of what they feel, think, or might have a
propensity to do. And being judged on an invalid assessment of such thoughts,
feelings, and propensities amounts to losing one's civil rights on an
essentially random basis. [Back]

2 A very eminent psychologist once proposed
that "intelligence is whatever it is that is measured by intelligence
tests." [Back]

5 The materials in this section have been
taken from the third through the eighth Mental Measurement Yearbooks, all edited
by Oscar K. Burros. The third was published in New Brunswick, New Jersey, by the
Rutgers University Press; the fourth through the eighth were published in
Highland Park, New Jersey, by the Gryphon Press; the years were 1953, 1959,
1965, 1972, and 1978.